


pour it all out into a microphone, then realize you don't feel any better

by MigrantMayhem



Series: death can't touch us, honey [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Johnny Silverhand Being An Asshole, Sharing a Body, Soft Johnny Silverhand, V plays guitar, music bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MigrantMayhem/pseuds/MigrantMayhem
Summary: V is pissed, after not even a week with her parasitic resident. She takes it out on a notepad, lungs full of water that she can only scream out. Johnny is, as always, along for the ride, and finds some middle ground between he and his begrudging host.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: death can't touch us, honey [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196861
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	pour it all out into a microphone, then realize you don't feel any better

**Author's Note:**

> is this ooc? probably. first attempt at writing any cyberpunk period and I'm barely even in the game. feel free to leave critiques in the comments!!

Johnny all but screamed against the confines of his mental asylum. V had taken those damned pills and now he was shut out; he had things he wanted to _say_ , shit he had to _do_ \-- but no, he was locked in now, just behind her pretty little eyes. Her organic eyes, he thought-- they caught him by surprise when she looked in a mirror for the first time since their unlucky union, and it took barely an ounce of energy to find the convo between her mother about how eyes are the window to the soul, the convo between her and her ripperdoc about how she wanted to keep her eyes, if she could, if they could just slip the optics beneath her lens, and the doc was good, obliged. It was still real skin and muscle above the Kiroshi’s. It took some great lengths to preserve something as fragile and replaceable as eyes, he had discovered.

She clearly had much less access to his own mind, asking him all kinds of questions that could be answered with so much of a look into his psyche-- engram, whatever. It was just a reminder of how _invasive_ his presence was.

V was pissed, Johnny knew. That’s why she took the blockers, that’s why she flipped off the driver that nearly hit her, that’s why she shot the cyberpsycho instead of zip-tying him. That’s why she sprinted into the elevator of her megabuilding, that’s why she growled at her neighbor trying to make smalltalk, that’s why she was wiping tears out of her eyes as she shut herself into her apartment-- out, away from the world, just like he was.

It was just the two of them-- no, the _one_ of them in here. V didn’t realize he was still running rampant under her skullcap, listening, watching. That’s why she was being so vulnerable. If he had been out there, trying to pretend to be a real person, if only for her own sanity-- she would immediately bottle up, put up that tough-girl performance again and keep burying those feelings until she snapped in the wrong moment and let it out on the wrong person. God, he had been there-- too many times to count. So he resigned himself to-- metaphorically-- sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

He couldn’t put his finger on what V was so upset about-- neither could she. What set her off today was a mystery to them both, but they both knew deep down what this was about. V was still _grieving_ , the loss of her friends, of herself. Johnny could see the guy-- Jackie, a big lug with a heart of gold, it seemed. He wanted to make it so _fuckin_ ’ bad, it was embarrassing. Poor chick. He was her best friend in the whole world. Her heart ached and he could feel it like it was his.

She sobbed, and she sobbed, and she sobbed, until Johnny was bored of the pity party and started scratching up the walls again. Those omega blockers did their fuckin’ job, alright. Shit was airtight, he couldn’t even bleed out a little and let his voice be heard. V could have her moment of peace to herself, he guessed, even though he thought it was pretty fuckin’ inconsiderate.

Lines and phrases bubbled up through her mind and he caught every last one. It was poetry-- no, song lyrics. He hadn’t realized V wrote.

She stood up and went to her computer, opening a notepad and typing furiously. The words were honest, revealing, and Johnny made up sample tunes in his head as she wrote them. V had no tune to it, yet, she was just writing away, all jumbled up and chaotic. He knew what he would do to the song if it were his, he could hear the riff he would want to put to it, the order of the lines, the message he’d want to get across. But it wasn’t his, even though it was his hands typing it, his eyes reading it. It was V’s soul-- V’s soul was in it.

Johnny took a little solace in the fact that if shit did go sideways, maybe Johnny could perform her song. In her honor.

V wrote and rewrote and rewrote the song until she felt like it was coherent, then she stood up so abruptly Johnny nearly got whiplash-- or whatever the equivalent for him would be.

She got into her vault and Johnny saw the guitar in her mind before it was in her hands-- old, worn, acoustic. The paint had long since faded and the wood was worn in spots that showed off the grain. It had a strap that was made of long-since-worn-off plastic leather and woven black fiber. She lifted it over her head and strummed it, and Johnny wanted to cringe it was so out of tune. She played with the tension on the strings and plucked it until she was satisfied but even then it was _still_ out of tune. This didn’t seem to phase the wannabe rockergirl as she walked back to her desk and started playing chords-- the guitar was out of tune but the chords weren’t, her fingering was wrong but it sounded natural, intentional. He knew she was self-taught before he could even scan her memory.

She seemed to find a key that she liked and she began, and Johnny couldn’t help but listen, couldn’t _not_ listen if he wanted to; his personal, voyeuristic concert.

_“I take another sip off the bottle_

_Waiting for the one that slides into my lungs_

_Because what’s the point of living forever_

_If you can’t keep the ones you love_ …”

Her voice was raw and rough from crying, but at the same time it was rich, breathy, deep and shallow as she moved through the lines. She sang in her lower register, it seemed much kinder to her but she didn’t shy away from the high notes. Most importantly, she poured herself out into the music, voice shrill and shaking and cracking and caving but she didn’t care, because the music didn’t matter-- she just needed to get it _out_ , get it _out_ of her head and maybe in the atmosphere it would evaporate. It wouldn’t, it never did, but he didn’t have the cruelty in his heart to tell her that. Besides, despite it’s pock-marked exterior, her music was pretty. It was passionate. It told a story that was deeper than worldly troubles, that was deeper even than him-- attached to the root of her cerebral.

_“So instead I'll stay here_

_Death staring me in the face_

_Don’t care if its the bottle, the bullet or the cancer_

_I’ll be dead by tomorrow anyway_

_So reaper, won’t you come collect me?_

_Or is this wretch below your pay?_

_Don’t matter if it’s the bottle, the bullet or the cancer_

_I’ll be dead by tomorrow anyway_ …”

She sang, and he could feel her walls slip away. It was just her, here. She hadn’t forgotten about him, he was in her damn song. He knew he was the ‘cancer,’ and he knew it without checking her brain to see if he was right. But then she sang ‘at least death has a pretty face,’ so clearly he wasn’t all that bad. If she knew how much access he had to her brain, she might change her mind. But as she was, she sang as though he didn’t exist but in her nightmares, that it was just her alone in this room. She reclaimed her space more naturally than a Corp gentrifying a neighborhood. But this was a prettier sight-- prettier sound, at least.

_“And I swear to God, sometimes_

_I wanna thank you for killin’ me!_

_And yet I still want to drag you_

_Down to hell with me_

_It’s a cruel curse of fate_

_That I’m the one who survived_

_Only to be tormented by something half-alive_

_Maybe it’s a fitting end_

_For someone as wretched as I--_ ”

The walls finally fell completely, and Johnny let himself leak out of her and press his hologram against the memory of a wall and stared at where she sat in the chair. He knew she could feel him-- his presence raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

Her hand brushed against the strings as she stopped abruptly. There it was, the moment of vulnerability gone, the tough-girl act was back.

“Well?” She practically growled. He could feel waves of shame and anger and frustration radiating off of her, into him.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Can’t get a moment of fuckin’ peace--”

“Where’d you get that guitar? ‘S old.”

The facade dropped for a moment and she cradled the guitar-- the way guitarists cradled their baby. “It’s… uh, my… my granddad’s. He told me he used to play in the 90’s and the ‘aughts.”

“He didn’t teach you?” She bristled at his dig, but didn’t snap back. Didn’t have the energy.

“Said his hands were too sore by the time I got around to learning. Arthritis.”

“Didn’t he just get implants like the rest of you fucks?”

She shook her head. “Granddad was wary of implants. Said he grew up on Terminator and other shit-- ‘fraid Airknot was gonna hack into ‘em. Like _Foreign Body_.”

“Jesus-- _Skynet_.” Johnny corrected.

“What?”

“‘S Skynet. Not-- the fuck did you call it? ‘Airknot’?”

She blushed, and once he swallowed the second-hand embarrassment, he figured she looked pretty cute like that. “Look, asshole-- I wasn’t the one watching it! Shit’s almost a hundred years old now.”

“Fuck, you’re right. _Shit_ ,” He breathed, shaking his head. That meant he was nearly a hundred. Time fuckin’ flies when you’re dead.

“...Sorry,” V muttered.

“What?”

“Said ‘m sorry. That was a low blow.”

Johnny looked at her, oddly. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“You can’t hide from me, Johnny. You’re up here,” She tapped her temple, “You’re no better off than me, adjustin’ and everything.”

Johnny just stared for a long, quiet moment.

“You know, I’d ask if my engram was accelerating too fast, fuckin’ up your software, but no-- because that’s pussy shit, no way that could be _me_. You think you’re gonna hurt my feelings like that?”

“Jesus, alright-- Fuck you too, I guess. I just figured, hell, we’re stuck together, we might as well try to _get along_!” She shouted, standing from her chair.

“Yeah, fuck that noise. Misery loves company, sweetheart-- so get cozy.”

“How the fuck did _anyone_ stand you?” She growled, and he only laughed-- harsh, bitter. She moved into her vault, shutting the door. He quickly phased in the room with her.

“God fucking-- what the hell are you doing in here?” She sat crosslegged on the floor, guitar in hand.

“I don’t have a choice, sweetheart. Can’t be where you can’t see.”

“Unless it’s back in my brain.”

“Nah, been cooped up there all day. Wanna stretch my legs a little. Besides, how can I critique your singing if I’m buried in your fuckin’ synapses.”

“You don’t get to _pick_ at that, Johnny--" She roared, "you can take my mind, my fuckin’ body-- you _can’t_ take singing away--”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Johnny put his hands up at V’s sudden chihuahua rage, “Who said I was gonna? You’ve got talent, kid.”

“What?” Her voice faltered, rage still tinting her tone as she registered what he said.

“You do.”

There was a pause, and he could feel V’s mind spinning.

“You’re fuckin’ with me. Once a-fuckin’-gain.”

“I’m not. You’ve got spirit. It’s a nice change of pace from that shitty synth-pop you listen to.”

“I… uh… thanks, I guess.” She looked down, and suddenly seemed so small. Johnny sighed, sitting down against the wall with her.

“Yeah, sure. Don’t get used to it. Now, start that song from the top. I’d rather hear it in realspace than in your head.”

“It don’t make a difference, does it? You’re still hearing it through my ears.”

“Shh, let me have my moment.”

“...Right. Sorry.”

It took V three tries to find the chord she had used, but once she found it there was no stopping her. Johnny just sat, head against the lockers, foot tapping to the sound, fingers feeling the reverberations through the guitar even though it was in her hand. Sure, she was kinda squeaky, kinda rough around the edges, but that never really mattered to Johnny. He let his eyes close and he pretended, for a moment, that he was alive.

**Author's Note:**

> also yes i wrote that song at 3 am at work bc i was caught in my feels so


End file.
